1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device for forming an image on a recording medium based on print data.
2. Related Art
There have been provided impact dot printers that feed a sheet of carbon paper (paper with ink applied to the rear surface thereof) and a sheet of transfer-receiving paper superimposed on the carbon paper into a print portion and print the same information on the carbon paper and the transfer-receiving paper (as an image taken from the rear of the carbon paper) simultaneously by performing a printing operation on the carbon paper. The carbon paper is used as the customer's copy, and the transfer-receiving paper is used as a file copy. For that reason, the format for the carbon paper is generally made to be different from the format for the transfer-receiving paper, so that a user can see at a glance which is the customer's copy and which is the file copy. However, in order to obtain a customer's copy and a file copy with laser printers that are now common nowadays, the user must issue two instructions for printing in the format for the customer's copy and for printing in the format for the file copy. This necessitates manual work. For that reason, Japanese Patent Application-Publication No. 2001-328325 proposes a laser printer that stores format data for a customer's copy format and for a file copy format, and a copy is printed based on image data combined with corresponding format data.
However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application-Publication No. 2001-328325, a recording medium is fed from the same paper supply tray regardless of whether a customer's copy is printed or a file copy is printed. Therefore, if a user wishes to use different types of recording medium for a customer's copy and a file copy in this technique, the user has to place first a sheet of paper for the customer's copy and then a sheet of paper for the file copy in sequence in the same paper supply tray, which requires a tiresome manual work.
The same problem arises not only in a laser printer, but also in any image forming devices, such as ink-jet printers, that form an image on a recording medium on the basis of print data.